Oh. Yay.
Granny perched on the edge of a kitchen chair and focused her bright-eyed stare in Alejandro’s general vicinity. She was so nearsighted she often tripped over furniture in her own house, but she was too vain for the thick trifocal glasses she really needed.
“Glasses, Mom,” Sue said gently. “You need to remember your glasses.”
“Did you pay the cabdriver yet, Granny?” Rose asked, already looking for her purse.
“I think I left my glasses at home, Sue, so don’t fuss,” Granny said, shooing her daughter away. “And Rose, put your money away. I don’t need you to pay anybody.”
“You paid for your own cab? Wow, Granny,” Astrid said, grinning. “Way to go!”
Granny winked at her. “Now don’t get fresh with me, Buttercup Astrid Cardinal. I was paying for cabs and stirring spells when you weren’t even a gleam in your Mom’s eye.”
“We told you that we’re happy to drive over and get you anytime, Mom,” Sue said, filling the kettle for tea.
“No need,” Granny said, flashing her huge denture-filled smile. “I bought a car.”
Sue dropped the tea kettle, Astrid high-fived Granny, and Rose stumbled backwards in shocked disbelief, slamming into all those hard muscles she’d been drooling over earlier.
Alejandro, who’d moved behind her at some point after they’d entered the kitchen, caught her with strong hands on her hips.
“I take it that it is a bad idea for your abuelita to drive?” he murmured.
Rose went weak in the knees when his breath feathered across her sensitive ear, and she completely forgot what they’d been talking about.
“Um, what?”
The low, rich sound of his chuckle touched places inside her that had no business being touched, especially by an official agent of the P-Ops division of the federal government. She caught her breath before she could moan, or rub her bottom against him, or do any of the fifty other wanton things that her wicked brain was suggesting.
The doorbell rang again, and Rose escaped to answer it before she could do something stupid like start licking the nice federal agent on the neck.
“I bet he tastes as good as he smells,” she muttered darkly, throwing her front door open.
The tall, slender young guy who stood there blinked at her. “Um, excuse me?”
“Nothing, Connor. Come on in. Your potion is ready; I just have to bottle it. It’s been a busy day.” She led him through the house, wincing at the thought of poor Connor having to face both Astrid and Granny at the same time.
“Ah, is Petunia around?”
She glanced back at him and sighed when she saw that his cheeks had turned pink. Yet another conquest Petunia wouldn’t even realize she’d made. The middle Cardinal girl was a scholar, first, last, and always, and spent most of her time immersed in the world of ancient books and scrolls. Petunia’s picture was probably in the witches’ encyclopedia next to the phrase “absent-minded,” but she collected admirers like their mom collected butterflies.
Rose sighed. She’d never envied Pet before, but when Alejandro had stepped into her house, Rose had suddenly felt a little bit insecure.
“Right. And I’m not going to let a man do that to me, no matter how pretty he is,” she vowed.
“Um, who’s pretty?” Connor sounded totally confused, and Rose didn’t blame him.
“Sorry. Just thinking out loud,” she said breezily, leading him into her crowded kitchen.
“Everybody, you know Connor,” she said, waving a hand.
Alejandro folded his arms across his deliciously muscled chest and gave the poor kid a narrow-eyed look. “Connor who?”
“Um, ah,” Connor stammered.
Rose pointed at Alejandro. “You. Behave. You don’t get to interrogate my guests, especially when they have nothing to do with basilisks.”
Connor made an odd strangled sound. “Basilisks? You—um—do I even want to know?”
Astrid sidled up next to him and slid her arm through his. “Don’t worry about it, Hotness. We’ve got it under control. Well, except for the stone guy in the backyard, but he’s only a federal agent, so he doesn’t even count.”
The poor boy’s eyes got so big Rose could see the whites all the way around. “The what? I mean, the who?”
“Heh. The basilisk got him? I guess that means he’s rock hard,” Granny said, belting out a laugh that sounded way too much like a cackle for Rose’s liking.
Seriously. Witches and cackling? No. Just no.
Alejandro swept the room with his “I’m a cop and I really want to arrest everybody” gaze, and Rose wondered why it gave her shivers in places that had no business shivering.